Saturday, January 30, 2010

Scarborough and Bernstein In Heated Exchange With Teacher Union Head On "Morning Joe" - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education.

The scene was Randi Weingarten, head of the AFT (teachers union), with Joe Scarborough, host of Morning Joe, journalist Carl Bernstein, and Willie Geist, host of Way Too Early.

You could sense the restraint used by everyone at the table but that couldn't hold back the sparks and impassioned quips that made their way to the camera.

It mainly seemed as if there were two different conversations going on at the same time, where the answers to questions never seemed to quite correspond. Here are a few money quotes (taken out of order). Still, quite the disconnect. Or, cut to the chase and watch for yourself - video below:

Scarborough:  "Unions killed a bill that would have given NY kids (schools) $700 million".

Scarborough:  "Teacher unions have put job security ahead of students well-being."
Weingarten: "We need to help all of us take more responsibility to help make sure all our kids get a decent education."

Weingarten: "Teachers want to help kids succeed".

Bernstein: "You've fought it all these years".

Scarborough:   Harlem Village Academies are at at 8th 100% proficiency level in Math after entering school a few grades behind.

Weingarten:  One charter school run by the union: "95% did great in 5th Grade Social Studies".

Watch for yourself in this 12 min.video Below (first 10 are the main event).

Click here for the story about Harlem Village Academies, as reported by The Daily Riff last

CrisisMaven’s Economics Study Guide � CrisisMaven's Blog

CrisisMaven’s Economics Study Guide � CrisisMaven's Blog: "This blog has two main purposes:

It is meant to comment upon and elucidate matters of economic inquiry and economic policy, and it acts as a systematic study guide in economics meant to complement more traditional teaching approaches.

What CrisisMaven believes sets this collection of articles and overviews apart is that each single post or article attempts to look at a certain well-circumscribed subject within the vast field of economics for once through the collecting lens of some current event, as CrisisMaven believes it is only then that one’s mind will be receptive and interested in such subject, as well as each post tries to analyse the matter at hand in enough depth so that a reader, when finished, may with some confidence claim to have understood it thoroughly enough to follow any spirited discussion, be it with academics, researchers, practitioners in the field or other interested laymen (and women)."

The Way it Ought to Be �Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech

The Way it Ought to Be
I'm at Educon.
If you're not familiar with Educon, it's a conference/conversation hosted by Chris Lehmann and the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, PA.
I was fortunate to be able to spend Thursday and Friday hanging around the school. Here's what I saw:
Lots of smiles.

Loud classrooms

A principal's office that looked more like grand central with equal numbers of staff and students talking and working, coming and going

Teachers who discussed personal issues with students

A brief power outage that didn't paralyze learning despite them being a 1:1 school

A lack of emphasis on technology

Students occasionally off task

Students excited to talk with adults

None of these things are particularly amazing and are all things you could find in many, if not all schools in North America. I didn't see one thing that couldn't be done almost anywhere. The teachers are good teachers but they aren't doing anything I haven't seen before. So what's the big deal?
There are many more observations and insights that one would make beyond the few I've listed but I'm not sure that any additions would tell us that "one thing". It's obvious that leadership plays a significant role and that grows culture over time which is undeniably palpable. While many will continue to deconstruct and analyze how, and if this type of place is replicable, Good teaching and caring adults can lead to a really wonderful place which Science Leadership Academy truly is. But maybe SLA isn't so unique after all? Maybe there are more schools and classrooms like this but we just aren't telling anyone? The level of connectedness among staff doesn't hurt their image but indeed follows closely with one of their guiding principles: Learning can – and must – be networked. But behind that networked learning lurks teachers who know how to teach just like many of the teachers you work with or you already are.

Dallas ISD magnet schools' admissions policy waiver riles parents | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Latest News

Dallas ISD magnet schools' admissions policy waiver riles parents | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News| Latest News:

"Frustration, anger and even talk of a lawsuit have bubbled up following a Dallas school board decision to change the competitive admissions process at a handful of top magnet schools.

The board of trustees approved a waiver Thursday so that parents at four magnets will not have to reapply for admission as their children move from one grade span to another at their schools.

For example, a child admitted to the William B. Travis Talented and Gifted school for grades 4 and 5 would not have to reapply to get into Travis' gifted school for sixth- through eighth-graders.

The change takes effect Feb. 1 – just in time for this year's magnet application season – and affects Travis, George Bannerman Dealey Montessori Vanguard and International Academy; Harry Stone Montessori Academy; and Irma Lerma Rangel Young Women's Leadership School."

Rochester school forums delayed until bill is drafted | democratandchronicle.com | Democrat and Chronicle

Rochester school forums delayed until bill is drafted | democratandchronicle.com | Democrat and Chronicle:

"As protests against mayoral control of the City School District continued Friday, Rochester Mayor Robert Duffy announced that the first two of the four public forums on school governance have been postponed.

The forums have been postponed, Duffy said, because Gov. David Paterson's staff has not completed writing the draft legislation.

'While they are working diligently on this, it is clearly not yet finished and we do not have a firm date when the draft legislation will be ready to take to the people,' Duffy said in a statement. 'I do not want to bring together gatherings of people and not have answers to their questions.'"

Organizing for America | BarackObama.com | Congress: Join the fight for the middle class

TO:	Your Members of Congress	(Look up your representatives)

For the last decade, Americans have struggled under crushing debt, skyrocketing costs for health care and education, and falling wages.

It's time to rescue the middle class, rebuild it, and restore it to greatness. I will stand with you as you fight for it.

Sincerely,

Your Signature

EducationNews.org - “Cradle-to-Career Plan by Obama and Duncan”

EducationNews.org - “Cradle-to-Career Plan by Obama and Duncan”:

"1.29.10 - Donna Garner - As revealed in Arne Duncan’s letter today (posted below), the Obama administration is determined to take over each and every bit of family, local, and state control literally from cradle-to-career."

As revealed in Arne Duncan’s letter today (posted below), the Obama administration is determined to take over each and every bit of family, local, and state control literally from cradle-to-career.

I sent the following message to my two Texas Senators, John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison. Please read this e-mail carefully and contact all Congressmen, state legislators, and policymakers whom you know. We must not allow the federal government to control all children cradle-to-career.
Even as we speak, legislation is pending in the Senate that would allow the U. S. Department of Education to control all federal student loans. Presently, students can choose between getting direct-lending loans or getting federal loans through private banks. These types of loans put students closer to the people making their loan decisions, and better communication and customer service occur.
Can you imagine the glut and the breakdowns in communication that would occur if all students needing federal loans had to go through impersonal loan officers in the U. S. Department of Education in Washington, D. C.?
As Sen. Lamar Alexander stated recently, "The Department of Education in Washington will not be able to serve students as well as 3,000 lending institutions."

Education - Everything you need to know about the world of education.

Education- Everything you need to know about the world of education.

Where Duncan went wrong

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan never should have said, as he did on a TV interview to be aired Sunday and Monday, that Hurricane Katrina was "the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans."

He was hurtful and insensitive. There were nearly 2,000 confirmed deaths from the storm and the floods.

Instead, he should have focused on why New Orleans schools attracted better resources, fresher ideas and a great influx of energetic teachers that they would not have gotten nearly as quickly if the disaster had not occurred.

Continue reading this post »

Duncan’s own Hurricane Katrina

When Education Secretary Arne Duncan said to a television reporter in an interview to air Sunday that Hurricane Katrina was the best thing that happened to the New Orleans school system, I’m sure he wasn’t retroactively wishing a catastrophe to decimate the city and its school buildings.

But his statement concerns me nevertheless.

Here’s what he told Roland Martin for TV One’s “Washington Watch,” airing Sunday at 11 a.m. EST:

Continue reading this post »

No plan to move Ellington, until there is

The key players in the recent flap over the future of Duke Ellington School of the Arts have issued a joint communique, essentially reaffirming what Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee said last week: there are no plans to move the school out of Georgetown until it gets its own state-of-the-art building.

The letter, dated Jan. 26 and addressed to Ellington students, parents and faculty, grew out of Rhee's meeting last Friday with members of the school's governing board, the Duke Ellington School of the Arts Project (DESAP). It is signed by Rhee, outgoing DESAP president Michaele Christian, head of school Rory Pullens and co-founder Peggy Cooper Cafritz.

"Both the Chancellor and the mayor are committed in the long term to a state of the art facility for Ellington, as well as the full engagement of the Ellington community in a transparent planning process," the letter states. "The more immediate focus will be on a renovation of the school in 2012, though if major funds are identified for a new facility in the shorter term, the renovation effort may be modified."

Grants for Education, College Grants, Education Grants, Grants for School

Grants for Education, College Grants, Education Grants, Grants for School
Government Educational Grants for Women

Published on January 30, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Despite the advancements the country has made in providing equality for men and women, it’s still common for women to be under appreciated when it comes to financial situations. Women find themselves with less opportunities for scholarships and can have a harder time applying for loans no matter what the loan is for. Fortunately there are government grants for women that can help them to achieve their goals.

College is the first step to a good career. Scholarships are a great way cut costs of tuition but the number of scholarships available is limited. There are many women who don’t qualify for a scholarship and thus lose their means of paying for school. Some grants are reserved for these women in order to give them the opportunity to receive a higher education and provide them with the same chances as men to get good careers.

Women are known for their caring nature and creativity, so it is only natural that there are many charity organizations that were founded by women. There are a lot of not for profit groups run by women that do great things but are still small in size because

As New York’s Charter Schools Gain Students, Future Growth Is Unclear - NYTimes.com

As New York’s Charter Schools Gain Students, Future Growth Is Unclear - NYTimes.com:

"Next year will be the biggest year of growth yet for New York’s charter schools, with 29 due to open in New York City alone. But Seth Andrew, the founder of Democracy Prep, a successful charter middle school in Harlem, is already starting to turn his focus to another state. The political environment in New York, he fears, is shifting."

This month, a bill to double the number of charter schools ended in deadlock in Albany. Political opposition is nothing new for such schools, but this defeat was particularly jarring, coming even as other states have loosened restrictions on charter schools to improve their chances for a share of $4 billion in federal grant funds in the competition known as the Race to the Top. As the Race to the Top deadline came and went, New York did not act.
Mr. Andrew, 31, wants to open five charter schools in the city; his second will open next year. But the current state law limits the number of charter schools to 200, and 182 are already running or have been given permission to open. While Mr. Andrew said he would not abandon his New York schools, he now plans to open three in Rhode Island, which offered him free facilities, and pledged to let him expand without limit as long as his schools show results.
“I was born and raised in New York, so I wanted to commit to New York,” said Mr. Andrew, who graduated from Bronx Science High School before getting degrees from Brown and Harvard.

Education is the Civil Right of the 21st Century: Whose Vision? Duncan? Bloomberg/Klein? Weingarten? Increasingly the Department’s Children First Initiative Is Being Perceived As a Powerful, White, Elite Plutocracy Imposing Their Will on Communities of Color. � Ed In The Apple

Education is the Civil Right of the 21st Century: Whose Vision? Duncan? Bloomberg/Klein? Weingarten? Increasingly the Department’s Children First Initiative Is Being Perceived As a Powerful, White, Elite Plutocracy Imposing Their Will on Communities of Color. � Ed In The Apple:

Over two thousand parents, kids, teachers, and just plain angry folk in the cavernous Brooklyn Tech auditorium and another thousand or so outside. The crowd, with signs and flyers and pins, black and brown and white, young and old, confronting the members of the Panel on Educational Priorities (PEP) and Department higher ups, almost all white.

For nine hours speaker after speaker confronted PEP Chair David Chang and Joel Klein. Impassioned pleas from current and former students, from parents, from teachers, from outside agencies who work with the school, electeds and Community Education Council (CEC) members.

Many of the speakers were community members, Afro-Americans, who accused the officials on the stage of racism to exuberant cheers from the immense crowd. More than nine hours later, after hundreds of speakers the mayoral appointees plus the Staten Island rep voted to close the nineteen schools.

Can a Mayor and a Chancellor survive growing accusations of racism?

NYC Educator: Saber Rattling Time

Saber Rattling Time

Mayor Bloomberg has made an offer to the teachers--a 2% raise on up to 70K for each of two years, and nothing above that. For teachers at max, that's a 1.4% raise per year, even though the tabloids will keep shouting 2%.

If we don't jump and say "Thank you sir, may I have another?" he'll fire 2500 teachers. A few days earlier, he was firing 8500 teachers. So in some strange way, we seemed to be making progress.

Then Joel Klein sent an email to the principals rationalizing this whole thing--we're closing the budget gap and teachers are paying for it. Never mind all that collective bargaining nonsense. We don't need no stinking UFT, or CSA.

As he just proved by closing 19 schools, against the will of everyone who spoke at public forums, he's Mayor Bloomberg and he does what he wants, when he wants, how he wants.

Actually he's got no such option. He has to deal with us and CSA whether he likes it or not, and it's better to wait him out than take crumbs--and that's what we're being offered. I hope our leadership really,

The Chalkboard: Reaching the Charter Conversion "Cap" - in the Year 7558 A.D.

The New York State Education Department released its federal Race to the Top application today. In the charter school discussion, this factoid read surreal to me:

"[t]he total number of charter schools that currently may form in New York are 4,540 conversion schools plus 200 non-conversion charter schools, or 4,740. This represents approximately 104 percent of the total schools in the state that are allowed to be charter schools."

Whew! Feel better now? Who needs a cap lift? Hey, we can do 4,500 more charters! Sure glad the Department put its best foot forward to the Feds!

This will not impress Washington. The problem with this description of the charter cap is that it is a legalistic absurdity based on the existing provision that places no cap on the number of charter schools that are converted from district schools. As a practical matter, this conversion discussion should have been reduced to a theoretical footnote.

As to the charter cap, the application also makes the preposterous claim that even though state Education law includes one, "such a cap does not prohibit or effectively limit the number of high-performing charter schools in the state" (p. 223). Does State Ed. expect anyone to belief this? Why include this sentence?

The University of California to Play the Waiting-List Game - Bay Area Blog - NYTimes.com

The University of California to Play the Waiting-List Game

By RACHEL GROSS

For the first time in its history, the University of California is expected to institute waiting lists for incoming applicants, possibly starting this spring. More than 1,000 applicants may be affected.

It’s a turning point for the university, with real symbolic heft. The practice is more often associated with private universities and tightly limited space.

The decision to adopt waiting lists, pending final approval by the university’s office of the president, comes after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed to restore $370 million to the university and put 10 percent of future budgets aside for state colleges.

The governor’s proposed support includes $51 million to fix the university’s chronic problem of over-enrollment. This is good news, because there are 15,000 undergraduates in the ten-campus system — which has a total of more than 200,000 students — for whom state reimbursement is lacking.

The immediate problem may now be remedied. But all the recent changes,

Digital textbooks cut costs, expand lessons | poughkeepsiejournal.com | Poughkeepsie Journal

Digital textbooks cut costs, expand lessons | poughkeepsiejournal.com | Poughkeepsie Journal:

"When students show up for Kevin Gaugler's Spanish in technology class at Marist College, they don't have to lug around a textbook.

The entire class is done electronically.

For Gaugler, who teaches the course, not using printed textbooks made sense.

'The whole course is task-based learning,' he said. 'There just isn't a textbook I could choose.'

While college students frequently have the option of buying used textbooks or even electronic versions that can save them a little cash, purchasing required textbooks can cost hundreds of dollars."

Denham introduces bill to ease college fee hikes - Local - Modbee.com

Denham introduces bill to ease college fee hikes - Local - Modbee.com:

"FRESNO -- Legislation that would require a 180-day waiting period and a 10 percent cap on fee increases at California's public universities was introduced Friday in the state Senate, state Sen. Jeff Denham said during an appearance at California State University, Fresno.

Denham, R-Atwater, has dubbed the bill the Student Protection Act. He said increases such as the 32 percent hike imposed this academic year on undergraduates at California State University and University of California campuses are forcing students to work more hours or drop out of school.

'They have no hope of getting a 32 percent increase in pay to be able to cover the cost of going to school,' he said."

Lake County News | California - California Community Colleges chancellor addresses need to improve transfer rates to universities

California Community Colleges chancellor addresses need to improve transfer rates to universities

Written by California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office
Saturday, 30 January 2010
DALLAS – California Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott on Friday stepped in for Dr. Jill Biden and delivered the closing keynote address at the 8th Annual National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students Conference in Dallas, Texas. Chancellor Scott, a former California State Senator who spent much of his political career championing education issues, focused his remarks on the necessity of improving articulation between community colleges and four-year institutions. “When courses do not transfer from a community college to a four-year institution, students lose valuable time and taxpayers waste a lot of money,” said Chancellor Jack Scott. “Improving how colleges and universities prepare students for transfer is a cost effective strategy for increasing graduation rates. My advice to cash strapped states is to invest a small amount of resources into developing common transfer agreements. Once transfer between systems becomes easy for students to understand, two and four-year colleges will recoup the economic benefits of running more streamlined institutions. In turn, these systems will successfully serve even more consumers.” A recent study by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office indicated that in the 2007-08 academic year, taxpayers spent about $28 million on excess units taken by students to achieve a bachelor’s degree. In general, community college students transferring to a California State University graduated with an average of 162 units when the minimum required is 120. Chancellor Scott has set as one of his top priorities improving transfer rates for students attending California’s 110 community colleges. Scott supported legislation to permit community colleges to offer an associate degree in a major with the designation for transfer. Studies show transfer students do as well or better than native four-year students in terms of GPA and degree completion. In Scott’s address he emphasized the need to improve national transfer rates.

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